When There Is No Competition

As we get ready to launch the new Pastors.com (which is a few weeks away), I’m learning both the pro’s and con’s of not having much competition. Don’t misunderstand, there are quite a few helpful websites for Pastors available, such as:

But most sites for Pastors are either sermon sites, product sites, news sites, or pastors’ blogs. Some include sections of content for Pastors but their target audience is much larger. So it’s hard to find sites that exist primarily for equipping and encouraging Pastors. When I asked Pastors on Facebook and Twitter what online resource they found helpful, I didn’t get very many answers. One person just put “kjv1611,” which is clever, but not exactly what I was looking for.

So Pastors.com doesn’t have a lot of direct competition who are doing exactly what we’re about to be doing. This is good and bad. It’s good in that we get to fill a niche in which there is plenty of room, and we’re doing it in a way that makes sense, developing content that Pastors can use in the moments when ministry demands outweigh our expertise.

But a lack of competition is also a bad thing. My fear is that we’ll lose our edge. We’ll stop pushing to be out front when nobody seems to be chasing us. In other words, without competition, we’re less motivated to stay relevant and run the risk of becoming obsolete.

I think this is true in life too. I hear all the time that Christians and churches shouldn’t compete with each other. It’s not a competition, we’re on the same team. I agree, but I can’t help but believe that there is some competitive drive deep within us that God put there to cause us to want to stay sharp. Obviously, in Christ, we’re all victors. But when it comes to doing ministry with excellence, maybe a little bit of competitiveness is a good thing?